Why Can't We At Least Have An Old Course Ball?

The concept of a rollback in distance is understandably awkward for a culture as self-involved as ours. One where folks naturally recoil at the thought of losing a few yards from their drives and pay for the privilege in so many unsustainable ways.

But let's allow the narcissism to run rampant for a moment and just agree that the world economy would collapse if the current USGA and R&A Overall Distance Standard was tightened a wee bit.

Instead, how about we agree that as in professional tennis, where enough integrity was unearthed to agree that a slightly slower ball would make Wimbledon better, we could do the same in golf at our Wimbledon: the Old Course.

From John Huggan's post-Open-at-the-Old-Course assessment:

Everything the R&A did to prepare the Old Course for this Open was designed to make the ancient links more difficult. Not more interesting. Not more fun. Just more difficult.

Appallingly and inappropriately, the Old Course surely has more long grass growing within its boundaries than at any time in its long history. With varying degrees of offensiveness, many bunkers are surrounded by rough. Plus, almost all of those wonderful hazards now appear man-made. So perfectly round are they, their faces close to vertical, they resemble doughnuts more than bunkers.

His point: all of the hole-tucking, green speed-pushing ways were employed not to test skill, but to work around modern distance that dates the Old Course. The same distance we are told has been capped. Though tell that to Jason Day and Bubba Watson, who had under 75-yard shots into a 456-yard par-4 Sunday in Canada.

I think we can all agree visiting the Old Course for the Open is a special affair and that it would be fun to actually see the it play somewhat more like it did 20-40 years ago when a long iron had to be used on par-4s.

So I ask: what would be so awful about an Old Course ball emerging every five or six years? The manufacturers could package it in a fun way, sell it to us suckers and advertise how they did their part to make The Open better?

What would be so terrible about this? Please, enlighten me...